You cannot be Serious....

I really should'nt have to excercise this much self restraint.

The a-C just got off the phone with me, after a lengthy diatribe by him stating that the Crusades/Inquisition murder of Heretics era of Catholicism is active in the minds most Anti-Catholic Protestants. (Um...tell something new please)

Essentially, I was pointing out to him that calling himself an "Anathema" (see previous post)was misinformed of current doctrine. Here is his answer to that:

"So were they (Rome) wrong with the tradition then? It really wasn’t meant to be a tradition? Do we issue an apology to all that were murdered or was that correct for the time and now we now longer do that…so God intended this truth for a brief period of time…I know you see the problem you face here…there is no way around it, the answer is no, you can’t redefine it the word…you are merely muddying the discussion to evade the need to realize that there is nothing that Rome can do with the papal decrees here popery issued in the 1400’s, are you saying they were wrong and now you are correcting? You answer is insufficient…your example is grossly minimizing the significance of this decree (anathema for faith alone, anathema if you don’t hold that the priestly order is only capable of discerning scripture, anathema for many things), these decrees resulted in condemnation both physically and pronounced spiritually….do you have formal issuances from popery that addresses this, NO, they unlike the mormans have never written anything to correct the issuances because they were inerrant in their giving…. You can’t answer no…. don’t they can’t answer this question, and I trust they can’t dupe you into thinking a logical answer is warranted…Rome is not the church and the traditions they prescribe are lies as this one scenario clearly renders…."

The a-C, while I find this attack language offensive, (note: well trained restraint required to absorb Content and not Tone) has a point worthy of addressing. While gathering my answer, I cited a portion of Mr. Akin's article on this subject, thus:

"8. The Church cannot retract its anathemas. Anti-Catholics love to repeat this falsehood for rhetorical flourish. But again, it isn’t true. The Church is free to abolish any penalty of ecclesiastical law it wants to, and it did abolish this one."

I see the a-C's point of linking an Anathema definition to the "victims" of the Crusades is that he would suffer far more greatly if today was...say the year 1067, and he denounced Catholicism. Valid point. So lets address the statement:

"Do we issue an apology to all that were murdered or was that correct for the time and now we now longer do that?...do you have formal issuances from popery that addresses this, NO,.... "

Pope John Paul II did in fact make as formal an apology and penance act as one could today....to obtain forgiveness for the acts of long ago deceased Catholic "Instigators". This CNN article of the 2000 JP II apology takes a mid-line view.

So, the answer is yes, "we" did apologize for all that...although I'm still not sure Catholics had anything to apologize for. I have read purportions by Catholic Apologists that state Calvin executed Servetus, which in plain fact is also not true, factually. So when this kind of debate spurs, coloring Catholics with the brush of murderous motive against Protestantkind, and its left to non-biblical, fallible history books to get right, I cant get conviction from those sources on fault. Fair is fair.